Eureka Tower

About Eureka Tower

Eureka Tower is a 297.3-metre (975 ft) skyscraper located in the Southbank precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the exterior completed on 1 June 2006. The plaza was finished in June 2006 and the building was officially opened on 11 October 2006. The project was designed by Melbourne architectural firm Fender Katsalidis Architects and was built by Grocon (Grollo Australia). The developer of the tower was Eureka Tower Pty Ltd, a joint venture consisting of Daniel Grollo (Grocon), investor Tab Fried and one of the Tower's architects Nonda Katsalidis. It was the world's tallest residential tower when measured to its highest floor, until surpassed by Ocean Heights and the HHHR Tower in Dubai. As of December 2013 it is the 14th tallest residential building in the world.[4]It is currently the 98th tallest building in the world.

Design and features

Eureka Tower is named after the Eureka Stockade, a rebellion during the Victorian gold rush in 1854. This has been incorporated into the design, with the building's gold crown representing the gold rush and a red stripe representing the blood spilt during the revolt. The blue glass cladding that covers most of the building represents the blue background of the stockade's flag and the white lines also represent the Eureka Stockade flag. The white horizontal stripes also represent markings on a surveyor's measuring staff.

When measured either by the height of its roof, or by the height of its highest habitable floor, Eureka Tower was the tallest residential building in the world when completed. It is also currently the building with the most floors available for residential occupancy in the world. The building stands 297 metres in height, with 91 storeys above ground plus one basement level. It is one of only seven buildings in the world with 90 or more storeys and is the equal 77th tallest building in the world. It is also the second-tallest building in Australia and the tallest building in Melbourne. The single level basement and first 9 floors contain car parking. The building's proximity to the water table as well as the Yarra River made the construction of a basement car park uneconomical. In all, there are 84 floors of apartments (including some floors shared between car parking and apartments), with the remainder being used for building facilities and the observation deck.

According to the ranking system developed by the U.S.-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the Eureka Tower qualifies as the tallest building in three of the four categories in which heights are ranked, namely height to the floor of the highest occupied floor of the building. For comparison, the Q1 apartment tower on the Gold Coast has its highest habitable floor the observation deck, reaching a height of 235 m (771 ft), some 62 m (203 ft) lower than Eureka Tower's highest habitable floor. Q1's highest penthouse apartment is 217 m (712 ft) whilst Eureka's penthouse is 278 m (912 ft) high. However, the spire attached to the top of Q1 exceeds the Eureka Tower in the other two categories, namely "Height to the tip of spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole" – in this case, spire – and height to architectural top of the building.

Specifications

556 apartments

13 lifts travelling up to 9 m/s

52,000 m2 of windows

3680 stairs

110,000 tonnes of concrete

5000 tonnes of reinforced steel

Building weighs 200,000 tonnes

Floors 82 to 87, marketed as Summit Levels, contain only one apartment per floor, each with an original price of A$7 million for the unfurnished floor space alone.

The highest floors of the tower house an observation deck (level 88), restaurant[9] (level 89), communications room and balcony (90) and water tanks (90 and 91). A system of pumps constantly moves water between the two 300,000 litre tanks to counteract wind-induced oscillations.